This invention relates to vehicle tow bars, and more particularly to a novel tow bar arranged to facilitate the hitching of a vehicle to be towed to a tow car.
Tow bars are known in the art, and are finding increasing popularity particularly among RV enthusiasts who often tow a car behind them so that they may have transportation other than their sizable and cumbersome campers when they have put in for a stay at a park or the like. Such conventional tow bars typically in use generally comprise a mounting bracket extending laterally across the front of the car and mounted to the frame or the bumper. An "A" frame tongue portion is attached at its wide end to laterally spaced apart points on the mounting bracket and provided for vertically pivotal movement thereon so as to accommodate upward and downward movement between the towing vehicle and the vehicle towed. The closed end of the "A" shaped tongue portion of course mounts the trailer hitch coupler, which receives the corresponding ball component mounted to the tow vehicle. When not in use, the assembly must either be unbolted and removed from the vehicle before driving, or the tongue portion pivoted upwardly and locked into position with the hitch coupler projecting well above the hood of the car forwardly of the bumper thereof.
Since no side movement or telescoping movement is provided in these typical tow bars, hooking up of the vehicle can be tedious, as precise lateral and distal positioning of the tow car relative to the front of the vehicle to be towed is essential for the hitch coupler to be able to engage the ball component. This routine either involves many trips between drivers seat and hitch to observe the attempts at positioning the vehicles until properly accomplished; a second person watching the positioning and instructing the driver what alignment corrections to make; or a fantastic amount of luck; as most persons familiar with trailering boats, campers, cars and the like seldomly seem to experience.
Art having pertinence touching upon the general problems associated with aligning vehicles to be connected together is disclosed in my earlier U.S. Pat. No. 4,057,266 issued Nov. 8, 1977 and entitled COUPLING GUIDE FOR TRAILER HITCHES.